Memories of Charlton County - by Gibson and Mays Back to Table of Contents 34. WORKING AT HOPKINS, GEORGIA (Pp 67-68) For several years I lived in a
small town that doesn't even exist now. In fact, I came close to being the postmaster there. It was on the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp and was called Hopkins, Georgia. The Hebard Cypress Company employed many people for its work in the swamp and everyone that lived in Hopkins either worked for the Hebards or were kin to those that did. I worked for my brother, Elvie Gibson, who ran the Hebard commissary at Hopkins. I was a clerk in the store and the only other one that
worked there was Mr. Edwards, the bookkeeper. I slept in a little side room attached to the commissary and ate my meals with Elvie and Emma, his wife. My sister-in-law, Emma, was one of Bud Altman's daughters. I loved to bird hunt and would go to the woods with my gun every chance I got. I remember one winter weekend when I went duck hunting on Billy's Island. A tram road ran into the swamp from Hopkins to the island and Harry Quarterman, camp superintendent, let us borrow
the motor car that ran on the tram rails. Mr. Edwards, the only other person that could operate the motor car, took Seward Lee and me to the island after we promised to bring him a duck in exchange for the ride. Seward, who worked during the week for the Hebards, had been raised on the island and knew where the ducks roosted. After we got to Billy's Island we got some more Lee boys to go with us and by Sunday morning we had killed 140 ducks, though there were very few of
them that I shot down. We hunted ducks early of a morning and late of an evening. They came in to roost like doves to a baited field and every time a Lee would shoot, down would come a duck. That night we camped in a shelter with a floor and roof that two moonshiners had put up in the swamp. We drawerd (cleaned out the insides) the ducks and filled them with salt to help preserve them. When we fixed our camp supper Saturday night we cooked duck gizzards, which are a good bit larger than
chicken gizzards. I like fried gizzards but for once in my life, I got all of those I wanted to eat at one time. We brought those 140 ducks out of the swamp and the Lees gave me six of them. I gave two to Mr. Edwards, two to Emma and Elvie and two to a family named Young that lived at Hopkins. The Lee boys took the rest to Fargo and sold them. When I worked at Hopkins, we didn't have a post office in the town. When a mail bag was delivered it was opened
and dumped out on one of the counters of the commissary, then everyone pawed through it to get their mail. We all thought this was highly unsatisfactory so someone asked the government to set up a post office there and the request was approved. I was asked to he the postmaster and agreed to this, but never served a day, for there was a long delay in getting the commission of the postmaster. We even received a big crate and when it was opened we found that we had a cabinet full of pigeon-holes
for letters. This was put over in a corner for a couple of months till the authority came so that it could be used, and about that time World War One started. My friend, Guy Dean, who was later my brother-in-law, challenged me to join the Marines with him. We both joined the service and were gone several years, so I never did serve as the postmaster at Hopkins. | 
